An unapologetic collection of observations from the field as the world comes to what promises to be a glorious and, at the same time, a very nasty end.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

An Open Letter to Ruth McCambridge

Deja Vu all over again?

Ruth McCambridge, editor of Nonprofit Quarterly, gets a lot of hate mail, particularly since NPQ stopped talking about Donald Trump. She got this delightful missive the other day from a Trump supporter and shared it on her email newsletter today.

“Notice Ruth, the writer of this, is a JEW and we know they are
rarely honest. They are mad cause they can’t buy or control Trump.”

Since many on the left think conservatives love Trump (and Ruth is unabashedly left-leaning, which I can respect), I decided to respond to her letter. My own letter is appended below.

Dear Ruth,

I am not surprised that you have been targeted with racist hate-mail
from Trump supporters. As a conservative, I find Donald Trump to be
appalling, perhaps even more than I find Hillary Clinton's and Bernie
Sanders' open socialism objectionable, I find Donald Trump to be even
more of a threat to the American ideal of preserving life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. As you have discovered, one of the groups
Trump appeals most to are the xenophobes of both parties. He is gaining
momentum by drawing from the angry fringe groups that drag down both
conservatives and liberals. I think there needs to be a coming together
among people with good hearts who want the best for America to oppose
the extremists that are capturing what Rush Limbaugh calls the
"uninformed voter". Limbaugh may make your eyes glaze over, but he does recognize the danger posed by those who refuse to engage in a debate of
ideas and instead respond only viscerally without defining what they
are angry about or what to do about it.
In Trump we have 1933 revisited. Hitler promised to make Germany great
again. Trump promises to make America great again. Hitler tapped into
the socialist sentiment and the economic woes of 20s and 30s Germany
with a bunch of vague promises to take care of the German people. Trump
makes the same kind of vague promises to his own followers and attracts
radical right-wingers and left-wingers who hear only the angry words
they too would speak if they had his microphone. Most frighteningly, he
appeals to the racist tendencies in those outlying groups that accept
all kinds of conspiracy theories without critical thought. The far
libertarian right has gone so far out there that they have circled the
planet and bumped into the loony Marxist left and there Trump has set up
camp.

It's no accident that you are getting anti-Semitic hate male. Trump's support comes from a segment of the American population that mirrors the segment of Germany that propelled Hitler to power in 33. A man like
Trump purposely makes his positions so vague and changeable from
audience to audience that he gets people to embrace highly-charged emotional ideas that in their
cooler moments they would disavow. His "pledge of allegiance to Trump"
exercise in Orlando was particularly chilling, but only to someone who
actually stayed awake in high school history class. In college we
watched Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will". I have little doubt
that, should Trump win, someone is going to produce a film called
"Triumph of the Donald". God help us if that happens.

Ruth, we may have political views that are polar opposite, but we share the same country. It would not surprise me if we shared many common beliefs as well. I want
smaller, less intrusive government with power divested to the local and
state as much as possible and more opportunity for individuals to
succeed on their own power. I think it's more effective that way. My
friends on the left want larger, more "involved" federal government that
provides a universal safety net and something of a utopia on Earth.
While I may disagree that any human utopia will ever work (I believe in
original sin, so that's part of my intellectual makeup), it is a
discussion we can have, so long as we are willing to keep it rational.

As a former community organizer, I was able to create coalitions of
liberals and conservatives by focusing our attention on the issues and
how to solve them. We all had to agree to leave ideology at the doors.
Republicans had to learn to speak Democrat and vice-versa. We were the
only initiative to get what we wanted from the newly minted Republican
majority in the Texas legislature that year. We got justice by
presenting the issue and a solution that worked, not by chaining
ourselves to light poles in front of the governor's mansion.

We can solve problems without burning down barns if we focus on what we
want to do, rather than on some notion of ideological purity. If we want to help poor people without insurance, for instance, let's do
that. That's the issue. Nobody wants poor people to die from neglect of their health. You may believe in universal healthcare as the only solution as part
of your ideology, but a whole lot of folk have a problem with that and
the results have been uncomfortably similar to what the opponents of nationalized
healthcare predicted - higher rates, poorer service. I made an eye
appointment to get my free Medicaid glasses - I have to wait a month. If
I pay the $78 for my contact exam, I can get an appointment in three
days. When my Medicaid was canceled because one month I made some extra
money to pay my landlord the back rent I owed, the Washington State
Health Exchange gave me the good news that I could get health insurance
through them for a mere $1,156 per MONTH. I had been forced to go on
Medicaid or pay a large fine to the IRS. Now I'm on their books and
either have to stay poor enough to stay on Medicaid or the IRS will
force me to buy health insurance that will cost me more than I make most
months (I care for a wife who is on full disability and can't be left
alone).

I think there's a better way to deal with the problem that is more
elegant and doesn't involve supporting a bloated federal bureaucracy and
paying bureaucrats to generate paper for each other and to find out
more and more personal information about me.

We could be discussing those kinds of solutions and still agree that we
should find a way to care for the less fortunate in our society. As one
of the "less fortunate", I don't want anyone to carry me. I spent 40
years in the nonprofit sector, started 5 agencies from scratch and
discovered that they don't call 'em nonprofits for nothing. I chose that
path. At the end of my life I'm scratching to make a living and keep my
beloved wife alive. I'd like to do it with some dignity. Let's talk
about how we can do that.

Because we have not talked about solutions and because we have spent decades tossing invective
and lies back and forth across the ideological aisle at each other, we've reached a
tipping point in America. If those of us who are reasonable were to join
forces, we might just tip the nation back from the brink of some new
brand of national socialism. Replacing Obamacare with Trumpcare is not a
solution the sensible folk on either the left or right would like to
see.

There is a powerful positive feeling toward Jews and Israel over here on the
conservative side of the aisle. Know that we will stand with you. This
is not 1933 Germany and a whole lot of us managed to stay awake in
history class. We are with you. Please know that these racists are not
us and we aren't even a little comfortable with them in our midst. And these folk are in the midst of both schools of thought. Neither the
conservatives nor the liberals are free from these snakes crawling around
on our ideological home turf.

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I’m a native Texan, free-lance writer, teacher,
counselor, fund-raiser, grant-writer, nonprofit CEO & advocate working with children, youth, seniors, people with
disabilities and the homeless. I’m a Seventh day Adventist Christian, Reagan conservative, amateur folk guitarist, banjo player, sailor and canoer. I'm happily married to Sheila Keen, a tall pretty Louisiana girl and together we've had 3
children. We tragically lost our son, Micah in 2006. We've since moved to the Pacific Northwest where we are healing and reordering our lives. We
look forward to Christ's soon return and being reunited with all our loved ones..